“Sir Edward Davey, the UK’s former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has said community ownership will “revolutionise” Britain’s transition out of fossil fuels.”

The report proposes that Tasmania should consider three easy policies to accelerate this exciting new sector:

• Government contracts with community-owned generators

• Business support to kick-start community-owned energy companies

• Valuing community benefit when assessing major energy project proposals

“The fast-track solution for Tasmania is to help communities achieve co-ownership of commercial wind farms and other large energy assets.

“This means that a community-owned energy company effectively buys a share of a wind-farm that is being built and managed by a commercial developer. This removes the substantial barriers to a community designing, managing and financing a complex infrastructure asset.”

The report was launched at ‘Imagining a Different Future’, an international climate conference in Hobart hosted by the University of Tasmania, University of Utrecht, the Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Science.

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